George walked towards the lake, looking around for his brother, but not really seeing anything.

He had nearly kissed Alicia! His best friend in the world apart from Fred! What on earth was the matter with him?

Sure, she was very pretty and he hadn't kissed a girl in nearly two months, but that didn't explain his behaviour. Or hers.

She was going to the ball with Roger Davies and was obviously crushing on the guy, so why hadn't she just backed off or slapped him or something?

George shook his head as though this would clear his fogged brain, but it didn't help.

"George?"

Fred came towards him from behind a willow at the edge of the lake.

"Yes, I'm George!" George yelled startled. Fred stared at him.

"Are you alright?" he asked, looking at his brother in concern.

"Yes! Yes, of course I'm alright!" George said far too brightly.

"Are you sure?" Fred asked, now looking quite alarmed.

"No." George said miserably, and sat down on the grass.

"What's the matter?" Fred asked, joining his brother.

"Well, you see… I, er…how it goes is…I mean…" George broke off.

"Should I take you to the Hospital Wing?"

"No, no, it's nothing physical." George mumbled, not looking at his brother.

"Ah." Fred said in an understanding voice.

"What?" George asked.

"What, what?"

"You just said 'ah'!"

"Am I not allowed to say 'ah'?"

"You said it in this tone."

"What tone?"

"You know, the 'ah'-tone?"

"The 'ah'-tone?"

"Yes, the 'ah'-tone."

"George, there isn't an 'ah'-tone."

"Yes, there is, you just said it."

"Well, what kind of tone is it?"

"It's the 'ah'-tone!"

"For god's sake, George, could you be a bit more precise?"

"Right. You said it in this voice, that suggests: "I know what happened."

"Did I?"

"Yes, you did."

"That's very interesting, but you wanted to tell me what's wrong with you."

"But you already know!"

"No, I don't!"

"But I could hear it in your 'ah'. It was that-"

"GEORGE!"

"Right, sorry."

"Just…just tell me what happened."

"Okay. You see, what happened is-" George took a deep breath.

"IkissedAlicia."

"What?"

"I kissed Alicia." George said, slower this time.

"That is, I nearly kissed her. But I would have, if Katie hadn't barged in."

He looked at Fred, who gaped at him.

"Why are you looking so surprised?" George asked.

"You always said, that there was something going on!"

"I know, but now that it's actually happened…" Fred broke off.

"Well, it didn't. Like I already told you, Katie-"

"What if Katie hadn't interrupted you?" Fred said quickly.

"If she hadn't barged in… would you have kissed Alicia?"

"Yes." George said, without hesitating.

"I mean, she's a girl, I'm a bloke, I like her and she wasn't about to take my eye out-"

"You know what I mean. Let's just put that whole blokes-and-girls-thing aside for a second. Would you have kissed Alicia? Even though she's your best friend and you've known each other for ages. Would you have done it?"

George was silent. His mind was reeling.

"I don't know." He said eventually.

"I mean, right at that moment I wasn't thinking about anything at all. She was just there, you know? But now that you mention it. I can't imagine me and Alicia working out as a couple. I don't think it'd work."

"I bet it would work." Fred said quietly. George shot him a look and Fred added:

"But of course that's your decision to make, I'll just shut up."

"No, you won't."

"No, I won't." Fred said and they grinned at each other.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about yelling at you and Angelina at breakfast, I was just-"

"No problem." Fred interrupted. "I understand, that we get on your nerves sometimes." George gave him a look. "Okay, we get on your nerves a lot. And all that talk about jealousy… I like working you up, you know that and Angelina really suspected something. Looks like she was right. Or wasn't she?"

"I don't know." George said miserably.

"I mean, of course I like Alicia, she's my best friend and I can talk to her about everything. Well.. not everything. I obviously can't tell her about-

"Boys' stuff." They said together.

"Yeah. That's just like Angelina and me." Fred said.

"You might not believe it, but at first it was kind of awkward. I mean, you're friends with someone and then you realize, every time she looks at another bloke, you want to smash his head into the wall. And when you've finally found the courage to tell her that and she tells you she feels the same way, only she'd rip out the girls' hair-"

"Ouch."

"Definitely ouch. Anyway, you don't know what to do. Should you kiss her now or just leave it at that?"

"Well, what did you do?"

"Nothing." Fred said grinning. "Angelina took matters in her own hands."

"Let me guess." George said dryly. "she snogged you unconscious."

"Almost, yeah." Fred said brightly.

"But it was still awkward. You act strange around each other and there are a lot of embarrassing silences and you just want to run away."

"And how d'you get past those?"

"Well, we sat down and talked about it." Fred mumbled, his ears turning red.

"You sat down and talked about it?" George snorted.

"Sounds like you've been married for over four decades and you decided on marriage counselling."

"Oh sod off!" Fred snapped.

"It really helped. From that night on, there wasn't anything awkward anymore."

"Good for you."

"I know."

"Oh, and Fred?"

"Yeah?"

"If you weren't going out with Angelina, I might get the feeling, that you were gay."

Okay, a very short one I know, but this needed to be a totally brother on brother conversation, anything else wouldn't have worked in this one.